A-P "So You Think You're A Sportswriter" Thread

[Guest Edgy DC]

That's some real space filler by Kiernan there.

[Elster88]

I can't believe that writers are still getting paid for writing Manny to the Mets stories.

]Manny Ramirez is at it again with the Red Sox and will not be in camp today when their position players report. The Mets need to take advantage of another case of "Manny Being Manny."

I heard it on the radio about 5 times that Manny had asked for and received permission to arrive at camp on March 2nd.

It's good to know that the Post is sticking to their usual journalistic standards.

[MFS62]

="Elster88"] It's good to know that the Post is sticking to their usual journalistic standards.

We have the full range of sportswriting in New York.
If the motto of the Times is
"All the news that's fit to print",
then the motto of the Post should be:
"All the news that's shit, they print".

Later

[metirish]

Klap is in mid-season form.....truely cringe inducing stuff here...

[url=http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxMDYmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY4ODQ4MTAmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2]Get sick here[/url]

[MFS62]

Irish, that Klapish piece really had me up in the air.
By that I mean that I wished I were on an airplane and had a barf bag handy.

I know you tried to warn us with the title to the link. But that's what I get for not heeding your alert.

Later

[Guest Rotblatt]

Our exposure to Adam Rubin is making us soft. I actually had to go to Page 2 to find this thread.

Anyway, Jacob Luft from SI.com had the following to say:

]PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- One thing is certain about the 2006 Mets: This is not the Worst Team Money Can Buy. To be sure, this was a pricey bunch to put together. That's what happens when your GM operates with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, lavishing huge contracts on free agents and acting like the Godfather of GMs in trade talks -- he likes to give other teams an offer they can't refuse.

Now, I'm the first to admit that we gave up too much for the pieces we got back this offseason, but dollarwise, our payroll is at around $92M, which means we only added around $6M--or less than a year of LoDuca.

That ain't a lot.

]With an improving Jose Reyes -- he drew two walks in an intrasquad scrimmage Tuesday -- and Delgado, Carlos Beltran, Cliff Floyd and David Wright, this lineup has power, speed and flexibility.

I'm sorry, but the Jose thing is just retarded. How on earth does drawing two walks in a split squad game = "improving"? It's meaningless.

]"Even my power hitters can hit righties and lefties," manager Willie Randolph boasted. It's too bad the hellbent-on-winning Mets didn't finish the job. Why would Omar Minaya & Co. take on all these long-term contracts (Pedro Martinez, Wagner, etc.) and trade away so much of their farm system (Yusmeiro Petit, Gaby Hernandez, etc.) to win this year and not find a replacement for their potentially fatal problem? That's right. It's time to talk about the elephant in the Shea living room: Kaz Matsui.

Uh-uh, no you did'nt!!! I can't believe he just brought up Kaz Matsui, the guy everyone in New York lacks the balls to talk about!!!

Wow, he really nailed us there--Kaz is TOTALLY the elephant in the living room. Thank god SOMEONE had the nads to step up to the plate and tell it like it is. God bless you, Jacob Luft!

]Mets fans are looking forward to another season of Matsui the way Vince Young is looking forward to another Wonderlic, which is to say not at all.

But I thought he was the elephant in the living room we were all to afraid to talk about? I'm confused.

]Matsui's hitting woes are easy enough to document: a batting line of .265-.320-.380 in 727 major-league at-bats. And that's the good news.

Uh, yes, that is good news, since that line would actually be a dramatic improvement over the production we got from our main second basman last year, Miguel Cairo--.251/.296/.324.

]If there is hope for the Mets, it is in a couple of minor leaguers who have posted impressive numbers: Anderson Hernandez, 23, and Jeff Keppinger, 25. Hernandez, ranked as the team's fifth-best prospect by Baseball America, can switch-hit and plays above average defense. He batted .303 with an OBP of .354 at Class AAA Norfolk last season. Keppinger is the better hitter (.337 avg. at Norfolk), but not as sharp with the glove and has had to deal with some injuries recently. With Matsui in the final season of his three-year, $20 million contract, the Mets will be more than willing to bench him if they have to. Going with a mix of the two rookies might be the way to go if Matsui shows no sign of improvement early.

But, but . . . I thought we were screwed because we didn't throw more money and/or prospects at the problem!!!

I mean, seriously, dude, if the only thing you can find to criticize about the 2006 Mets is Kaz fucking Matsui--and you think you're breaking NEW ground while doing it--then maybe you should go back to the drawing board.

The sad part is that this guy's written some pretty good articles--including one on the Mets last September.

I suppose Spring Training isn't just for the players . . .

on edit: I took some stuff out. The only really offensive part was the "elephant in the room" thing.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

It does read like a dumb, contradictory article, as you point out. But, a small point in his defense: he's not writing for a New York audience, but for a national one. And maybe the national media has been more focused on Delgado and Wagner and Pedro's toe than second base.

[MFS62]

Is this thread limited to bad baseball reporting, or can I mention a really bad basketball article by a "well known" writer?
I don't want to hijack the thread away from baseball, so please let me know.

Later

[MFS62]

MFS62 wrote: Is this thread limited to bad baseball reporting, or can I mention a really bad basketball article by a "well known" writer? I don't want to hijack the thread away from baseball, so please let me know. Later

OK, this has been out there for a while and nobody has said ,"no". So here's my rant:

I like basketball, but don't follow it on the detailed level and interest that I do baseball. In last Sunday's NY Post, there was a full page article by Dick "Hoops" Weiss. For those of youwho haven't heard of him, he is as widely known and respected as a college basketball writer as Peter Gammons is on baseball.

Sunday's article was about a player on the Gonzaga team who is leading the nation in scoring. IIRC his name is Morrison. The article went into detail about how good he is despite having had to overcome type I Diabetes. But there was enough basketball stuff in the article to make the reader hope that his favorite pro team would draft the kid. Unfortunately, Weiss forgot to include two things in that full page article - what position the kid plays and how tall he is.
I thought I might have missed them, so I re-read the piece.
Nope.
Not in there.

Since the article appeared in a New York paper and it looks like the Knicks will get the #1 draft pick it might have been some useful information. I doubt he was writing it for the seventeen Gonzaga alumni and fans in the NY area. They would most likely already know that information.

Now you see why I felt this was appropriate for this thread. Would it have killed him to start off a sentence with something like "The 6''8" forward... (or whatever he is)?

Later

[metirish]

Sports Illustrated has both Morrison and Redick on the cover this week, good article too, if the Knicks get the #1 pick that will go to the Bulls, Redick will probably go #1.

[metirish]

Who knew Rick Peterson's dad was GM of the Pirates?

] By STEVE POPPER STAFF WRITER PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- Pete Peterson was an old school baseball lifer, a general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates and a disciple of Branch Rickey. His son, Rick, had a different idea. Rick Peterson already was a coach in the minor leagues and told his father he wanted to install a sports psychology program in a baseball organization, to combine his interests in psychology and spirituality with mechanics. And his father, who had pushed his son to be a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist or to sell insurance, said, "Rick, you're not going to live long enough to do this. No one in baseball is going to do this." Times change, though. Baseball is a sport in which the job of a coach or manager for decades was to tell a player to grip it and rip it. But somehow in this world, as the pitching coach of the Mets, Peterson has found his place. In his back pocket, he is almost never without his dog-eared black book, a pocket calendar that plots out pitchers' schedules, but also includes pages covered by his own creations -- a triangle combining the elements of success, a list of attributes that make up "The Mental Side of Baseball," and a paper titled, "Prepare to Perform." In the bullpen, he has pitchers standing on the mound and making their pitches. It may look like any other session under the eye of any other coach. But here, the pitchers are making their pitches with their eyes closed, learning lessons of spatial awareness. He has taken his pitchers to the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala., to place them in a sensor-laden suit and undergo a biomechanical analysis -- a portable version of the machine is expected in Port St. Lucie later this month. Peterson pores over data with his staff, able to spout off the most obscure statistic. Peterson studies videotapes meticulously, able to spot the slightest variation in a pitcher's arm slot. But if a martial arts lesson or a spiritual awakening will solve a flaw in one of his pitchers, he will resort to that, too. "You have to try to be diverse enough and be balanced enough to understand where people come from and what they're about," Peterson explained. "It's not about what I'm saying. You try to be a reflection of themselves and reflect back on them, on what they do and what they do best." The task is not easily defined. Peterson went from a baseball nomad, adrift in the sport and even in his own ambitions, when he landed in Oakland under Billy Beane, a general manager with a rebel spirit. He inherited a team with the league's worst earned run average and led by a trio of talented youngsters -- Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder -- found acceptance, although sometimes grudging credit from some of his pitchers, when the staff finished in the top three for five straight seasons. With the Mets, he has a different challenge. He has helped turn around the likes of Aaron Heilman, salvaging a budding career that only a year ago seemed on life support. But he also has had to massage a new game plan out of Tom Glavine in the final years of a Hall of Fame career. He must tinker with Victor Zambrano -- a task far more intensive than the 10-minute fix claim that leaked out two years ago, while also serving as a co-worker to Pedro Martinez. Some of his pitchers gripe that he has a cookie-cutter mentality, wanting to create all of them in the same mold. In Oakland, some fought him (and nearly came to actual blows), but the numbers proved Peterson right. "For me, I found working with Rick fascinating," said Yankees pitcher Al Leiter, who spent one season with Peterson as a Met. "I want as much data as I can get -- then break it down and decide what I want to use." While Zambrano remains the unsightly measuring stick by which Peterson may be judged, his greatest accomplishment may have come not in finessing any of the young pitchers, but in remaking a veteran. Glavine was wondering last season if his career might be over, but Peterson helped with minor tweaks of his motion and a major overhaul of his game plan. Glavine put up a 2.22 ERA after the All-Star break last season. "With me and him it's more about him trying to get me to change my game plan," Glavine said. "He made me understand how good some of the other things were that I could do, get me to believe in that stuff." "When you go through a tough time like Tommy was going through, you get demotivated," Peterson said. "You get filled with pure worry and doubt that this game isn't working right here. From our standpoint, we have to get them motivated again on that process of pitching -- realize, 'OK, this isn't working right now.' What is it that we need him to do?" Belief is a big part of what Peterson does. He must make Heilman believe his pitch is good enough to retire major league hitters. He must make Glavine believe that a new game plan will smooth his path to 300 wins. But mostly, he must make old school baseball people believe that there is another way, a better way. One Peterson supporter said that the best proof that general manager Omar Minaya does believe is that in a season full of expectations, Minaya has handed Peterson a handful of pitchers who must be better than they've been -- Jorge Julio, Duaner Sanchez, Heilman and Zambrano. He has gained believers now. Even his dad. E-mail: popper@northjersey.com

[nymr83]

]Since the article appeared in a New York paper and it looks like the Knicks will get the #1 draft pick

That Kazmir kid is going to be great for the Mets this year... what? they traded him to Tampa?

[MFS62]

Were you trying to be funny, sarcastic or insulting?

I'm not a Knicks fan, so I don't follow the team's specific record and how it stacks up against other bad teams in the NBA as to who would get the first pick. But I do know that Red Holtzman must be hitting some real high RPMs in his grave.

My point was, the article was published in a NY newspaper. But fans of ANY pro team would like to know if the player mentioned would fit in with the needs of their team. For example, the Knicks don't need another shooting guard. But the article didn't tell me if the kid was a 6'9" power forward. And that was the point of my rant.

Later

[Guest Rotblatt]

Ah, [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/18/sports/sportsspecial/18chass.html?_r=1&oref=slogin]Murray Chass[/url], my old friend.

]U.S. Team Simply Not Ready in March By MURRAY CHASS Published: March 18, 2006 SAN DIEGO WHILE Commissioner Bud Selig ponders the possibility of an investigation of Barry Bonds, he might want to consider an inquiry into the premature elimination of the United States team from the World Baseball Classic. If he were to conduct such a study, he might find George Steinbrenner hiding in a corner rubbing his hands in glee as he removes pins from voodoo dolls of United States players. Steinbrenner, the Yankees' principal owner, made it clear he wanted no part of the inaugural international tournament. He did not vote in favor of it, and he discouraged his players from participating. The only thing Steinbrenner has not figured out is why the dolls didn't work in the first round of the tournament. He wanted Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Johnny Damon back in Tampa, Fla., a week ago. Be assured that the dollmaker will be fired. But all's well that ends well, and Steinbrenner has regained his players, including Bernie Williams, who played for Puerto Rico, and he is delighted. So much for the superpatriot who waves the flag when it suits his purpose.

Hah. Okay, that was a good one.

]Jeter, Rodriguez, Damon and the rest of the United States team are not in San Diego for today's semifinals because they were obviously not ready to compete at a championship level. This is spring training, and the sight of players wearing the uniforms of South Korea, Canada and Mexico did not elevate their mind-set from what it has been in any other March in their careers. Major leaguers are well-oiled machines, programmed to function in a certain way each year. Their internal clocks go off April 1. Major League Baseball plays the World Series in October, not March, for a reason.

Um, yes, it is--because it would be hard to decide who the two best teams are if no games have been played yet.

]Consider the four Classic finalists: South Korea, Japan, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Okay, let's consider them.

South Korea: WS held in late October. The season starts in April.
Japan: WS held in late October. The season starts in late March/Early April.
Cuba: WS in late March. Season starts in December, maybe?
Dominican Republic: Mostly major leaguers.

So the only team with any advantage here is Cuba.

Unless, of course, your argument is that MLB players are so highly refined that they play like crap until the stroke of April 1, whereas the Korean & Japanese players, being mere adequately oiled machines, play the same year round, regardless of how much spring training they had.

Please tell me that's not your argument.

]Among the hitters on the rosters of those first three teams, only Ichiro Suzuki is a major league player in this country.

Okay, but what about the pitchers--a huge reason South Korea's done so well and why the US sucked so hard? Or is it only hitters who are well-oiled?

I'm confused.

]The United States, Venezuela and Puerto Rico, all filled with major leaguers, are not in San Diego. The Dominican team is the lone exception, but at least one team with major leaguers from that second-round pool (Venezuela and Puerto Rico were the others) had to make it here along with Cuba.

Right, because the teams with MLB players crushed the teams without MLB players in Round One and then faced off in Pool 2 so that the US wouldn't have to face an MLB-heavy team.

What's your point?

]The United States' offense was so weak that Japan scored more runs, 44 to 33. Discount the United States' game against South Africa, and the results are punier: in its other five games, it scored 16 runs, an average of 3.2 a game, and it batted .238.

If we're going to discount the games against South Africa, why not discount Japan's games against China & Chinese Tapei, who were arguably as weak as South Africa, and against whom Japan scored a total of 32 runs, or 73% of its total in the series?

Outside of those two games, Japan averaged 3.0 runs per game--even less than the US.

So again, what's your point?

]When the United States didn't hit home runs, it didn't score much. Home runs produced 10 of the 16 runs the United States scored in the five games it did not play against South Africa. At the other end of the offensive spectrum, the United States sacrificed twice in the tournament. Japan sacrificed eight times, Korea six. But Japan and Korea were not without power. Japan hit eight home runs, Korea six. The United States hit nine. Buck Martinez, the United States team's manager, wanted to sacrifice at a critical moment of the game with Mexico, but the strategy backfired. The United States had runners at first and second with no one out and the score tied, 1-1, in the fifth inning. But Michael Young bunted through a pitch, and Jeff Francoeur was caught off second and tagged out.

What does any of this have to do with how the US got robbed of their rightful WBC crown?

That IS your point, right?

]Individually, some of the hitting numbers were ugly. Mark Teixeira did not have a hit in 15 times at bat. Two of the three catchers, Michael Barrett and Brian Schneider, each had six at-bats and combined to go 0 for 12. Matt Holliday was also 0 for 6. Damon was 1 for 7, Francoeur 1 for 6. "I think a lot of our hitters are star hitters," Martinez said. "They're used to coming through in the clutch, and I think everybody sensed like, well, I'm going to go ahead and do it and they were probably not ready to do it just yet. Their timing is such that they were off a bit." Jeter, Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Chase Utley were the team's big hitters, but they combined for 13 hits against South Africa and 19 against everyone else.

Well, sure, but ANY trio of players are going to slump occaisonally. And Chipper, Derek Lee & Griffey were hitting the snot out of the ball the whole time.

If you look at the Japanese team, Ichiro, Fukodome & Matsunaka combined for just 11 hits against 4 non-crappy teams. Guys like Nishioka & Iwamura unexpectedly contributed. It happens to every team--even ones without "well-oiled machines."

I mean, if I look at the performance of NYY in last year's postseason, here's how the "big bats" did:

Sheffield: .604 OPS
Matsui: .673 OPS
Rodriguez: .635 OPS

Impossible! Those machines should be thoroughly well-oiled by October!

]Where were the bats when they were needed? It's obvious they had yet to awake from their off-season slumber. What's the solution to the problem? Play the tournament at midseason or after the season? The hitters might be sharper at those times, but those times don't work. Major League Baseball won't shut down its season for two weeks in July, and if it's injuries that teams are concerned about, the players would be more susceptible to them after a six-month season than before it. Some members of the United States team had a different idea. Rodriguez suggested a Feb. 1 reporting date. Martinez suggested a minicamp early in February. "Bring the team together for three days," Martinez said. "Everyone would see his teammates and have that bonding process early on. Go back to their camps, then rejoin us. The most enthusiasm we had was when they got together for the first time March 3. Move that to, say, Feb. 3, maybe have an intrasquad game." Rodriguez offered a similar idea. "When the U.S.A. puts on the uniform, the ramifications are big," he said before returning to the Yankees' camp. "If you're going to make the commitment, make it maybe Feb 1, Feb. 5. But basically show up to the U.S. camp and get ready and prepare yourself, not just show up two, three days before the competition begins."

Fine, let's do that, but is this SERIOUSLY the reason everyone thinks Team America lost? Cuba's the only team that was mid-season, and the US didn't have to play them.

Why are you making lame excuses for this team's piss-poor showing? And why didn't you look at the pitching--the US was 7th in team ERA & WHIP, and THAT more than anything was why they lost.

We got outpitched, outhit, outhustled and outmanaged and couldn't win even WITH the benefit of two blatantly bullshit calls in two separate games.

Like Jeter said, Team America got all the breaks but couldn't execute.

]But whenever they show up, even more important, the players would have to adjust their internal hitting clocks. And keep the pins out of Steinbrenner's hands.

Whatever, dude. Players slump all the time--it happens. If the team isn't well-balanced--or lucky--enough to compensate for it, they'll lose. The WBC, just like the playoffs, is as much about luck as it about talent.

Get over it.

[Elster88]

Very well done. You should email that to him.

[metirish]

Willie has a few interesting quotes in this....

] Bannister looks like fifth-starter material By JOHN DELCOS THE JOURNAL NEWS PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. � It is the time in spring training to read between the lines to find significance in seemingly harmless items. For example, when Tom Glavine threw a simulated game yesterday before today's off day, it was more than to keep the veteran left-hander on track to be the Mets' Opening Day starter. It allowed manager Willie Randolph to take another lengthy look at Brian Bannister against major-league hitters, this time against the Marlins. Randolph is giving Bannister consideration as the fifth starter. And it's not cursory consideration, either. The former USC walk-on closer has given up two runs in 14 innings this spring, and the probability appears strong that his performance will send Aaron Heilman to the bullpen, which is where he was slated to be prior to the Kris Benson trade in January. "I was nervous," Bannister said before giving up two runs (one unearned) in five innings in the 5-0 loss to Florida. "I know what's at stake." Still, Bannister openly roots for his competition, saying the only rivalry between him and Heilman is "USC against Notre Dame, and that will be going on long beyond us." "Eventually, I hope they find a spot for both of us," Bannister said. That could be the case because the Mets' new and improved bullpen has been a little slow on the "improved" part. Randolph said the determining factor between Bannister and Heilman for the fifth spot � Victor Zambrano will be the fourth starter � will transcend numbers. "It will be the makeup of how the staff looks together, starters and relievers," said Randolph, who listed Billy Wagner, Duaner Sanchez and Jorge Julio as the only givens out of the 'pen, although his endorsement of Julio was lukewarm at best. Julio's career was on a three-year slide when the Mets traded for him from Baltimore. Pitching coach Rick Peterson has worked with him on his delivery, and both coach and player insist Julio's participation in the World Baseball Classic hasn't been a setback in his preparation. Even so, Julio gave up a two-run homer yesterday to former Met Mike Jacobs. And despite saying he wasn't smooth with his delivery, he emphasized that he got enough work at the WBC. Outside of the closer, Wagner, no left-hander has surfaced out of the 'pen, driving speculation that Heilman will return to the role where he was so successful last season, when his 0.68 ERA was the lowest among relievers posting over 30 innings after the All-Star break. "If you're asking me, certainly I'd like to start," said Heilman, who has been outstanding this spring with a 1.00 ERA over nine innings in three starts. "They haven't said anything to me yet, one way or another." Heilman is versatile enough to get out one hitter or pitch multiple innings, which affords Randolph the opportunity to rest Sanchez. Meanwhile, at the front end of the rotation, both Glavine (five innings) and Pedro Martinez (three) pitched simulated games. Glavine concentrated on his control in throwing 80 pitches. "I felt I threw the ball where I wanted," he said. Martinez threw 50 and claimed he is hopeful of pitching one or two innings in an exhibition game this week. If Martinez had to pitch in a regular-season game today, he anticipated not going more than five innings. It has long been speculated he would not be the Opening Day starter April 3 against Washington. "It is not an issue," Martinez said. "We have a lot of pitchers, so why rush it?"

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I didn't like the Sanchez-Seo deal, but I think I might end up liking Sanchez.

I'm very pessimistic about Julio, though. I'm not even sure why he's a "given" other than that he was traded for Benson. That's also likely the reason that Zambrano can't be displaced from the rotation.

I'd be okay with the Mets eventually dealing Trachsel and making room for both Heilman and Bannister in the rotation. But if Julio flames out they might end up needed Heilman in the bullpen.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I'm pessimistic about Julio, but feeling good about Coolio. Word.

[Elster88]

]It has long been speculated he would not be the Opening Day starter April 3 against Washington. "It is not an issue," Martinez said. "We have a lot of pitchers, so why rush it?"

Bad Pedro.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I'm planning to be camped out in front of my TV on Opening Day, and while I'd love to have it be a Pedro game, I'll be okay with Glavine. If Pedro debuts in the second, third, or fourth game of the season that's fine with me.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Apparently [url=http://www.projo.com/redsox/content/projo_20060323_23sox.d9c8cd0.html]out-of-town sports writers[/url] talk out of their asses all the time too.

Who knew?

]One way or another, somebody's got to go Opening Day is closing in, which means several players will be moving out, and Dustan Mohr and Tony Graffanino are atop the list. 01:00 AM EST on Thursday, March 23, 2006 BY SEAN McADAM Journal Sports Writer TAMPA -- A week from today, the Red Sox will play their final exhibition game in Florida, meaning some significant roster decisions must be made in the coming days. With each passing day, the decisions are coming into sharper focus. Central to that process will be determining what to do with infielder Tony Graffanino and outfielder Dustan Mohr, two spare parts. A number of teams continue to show an interest in Graffanino, with the New York Mets being the most intriguing possibility. Florida and the Chicago Cubs continue to be other potential landing spots. The Mets came into camp with three candidates at second base, only to have Bret Boone retire and Kaz Matsui go down with a knee injury that will prevent him from being ready Opening Day. That leaves Jeff Keppinger as the lone candidate at second.

I mean, did he bother to do any research at all?

[metirish]

Wright just wants to be like Jeter.

] By STEVE POPPER STAFF WRITER PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- When he first came up to the major leagues in the middle of the 2004 season David Wright was under the wing of Joe McEwing. Last year, his first full season, he carried Cliff Floyd's bags. Now, while still just 23 years old, he no longer seems like the kid who was paying his rookie dues. Floyd, sitting in the dugout Sunday afternoon as Wright bounds around the field, looks at him and admits: "I just want to be around the next few years to watch him," adding a few expletives to describe his friend. Wright established himself as a player last season, hitting .306 with 27 home runs and 102 runs batted in, ranking in the National League top 10 in seven different offensive categories. At third base, he shrugged off an early flurry of errors -- many from just trying to do too much -- and got better each game as the year wore on. And he tried to approach this year just like last, taking the same approach of reporting early, staying late, working with weights and working endlessly on the field. He was one of the last players out of the Tradition Field Complex on Monday, even after belting his third home run of the spring, a lesson learned from his first days hanging with a journeyman like McEwing. But he's not the same. While he may be in his mind and he may be in the locker room, he is now a cover boy, adorning the covers of Baseball America, ESPN the Magazine and Sports Weekly. He has created the David Wright Foundation and even earned his first endorsements from Wilson Sporting Goods to Glaceau Vitamin Water, wholesome enough for his All-American image. If learning from McEwing and Floyd got him this far, he now has his sights in a different direction. It is not numbers that drive Wright, but wins. And it's across town in pinstripes where he has seen the example to follow. "You get to that level of being a Derek Jeter through winning," Wright said. "You don't get there putting up individual performances. If you put up individual performances and lose, nobody cares. "I would love to sit with him. I hate that there is such a big rivalry with the Yankees in New York, but he's one of the guys that it's amazing not only to watch him play, but the way he leads. "He's not the most vocal guy. But you couldn't tell by looking at him in the dugout whether he's 4-for-4 or 0-for-4. "He's the first one off the bench to high-five guys. That's what you try to emulate, those leadership skills." Manager Willie Randolph was with the Yankees when Jeter began his career, helping guide Jeter through his early years. He is hesitant to compare the players, but it is hard to avoid the similarities. "When you look at David, he's very much like Jeter in his demeanor," Randolph said. "He's very consistent. He's the same as he was last year as far as work ethic, attitude every day, the way he goes about his business. He's a very young, but very mature player." Wright has managed, like Jeter, to avoid any of the pitfalls of stardom -- although Jeter's romps through the gossip columns and celebrity girlfriends seem a long way off from Wright's interest from fantasy baseball fans. There is little doubt Wright will continue to put up numbers on the field, but it is that something extra that seems to draw the comparison to Jeter. "He's a winner," Randolph said of Wright. "You can tell he wants to win and he's never shown anything different. I don't like to make comparisons, but what I've seen so far he is about winning, the way he plays the game is very unselfish." Wright said: "I think I'm slowly maturing, slowly being able to recognize what I'm capable of in this game, recognize that I can be, not a vocal or outgoing type leader, but I can lead by example. I can run balls out. I can go out and want to be in the lineup every day. With little things like that, you lead by example. "I have high expectations for myself, but it's not expectations that I have to top my numbers from last year. I mean, that's not what my goal is this year at all. My goal is to continue to improve and that we win baseball games. That's what's so great about the big leagues, especially in New York. If you win, that's what people remember. That's why I love playing in New York." E-mail: popper@northjersey.com

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

If Wright gets four World Championships in the next five years I'll be pretty happy.

[MFS62]

With every new season comes hope:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-beltran040106&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Later

[MFS62]

Wanted to put this in the 2006 quotes thread. But since this was by a writer, not a player. I think it goes here.
Enjoy,
Later

]"It's true (Kenny) Rogers was suspended last year for assaulting a cameraman. But around the same time, the Tigers traded Ugueth Urbina, who is awaiting trial on charges that he was part of a group that attacked five men with machetes, doused them with gasoline and set fire to them for stealing one of his guns. So on balance, the staff is not as violent as it used to be." -- Detroit Free Press writer Michael Rosenberg

[Elster88]

That's funny stuff. SC = zero

[Guest Edgy DC]

This guy's story isn't much worth reading --- trying to draw a moral from Gooden's promise, too-early peak, and extended downfall. I just want to call to attention this passage (his lead paragraph, in fact:

The fastball exploded into the mitt, creating a small cloud of dust. Or maybe it was smoke. The curveball seemed to fall from the sky, to the outside corner at the knees. The slider zoomed toward home plate, looking every bit a fastball, and suddenly darted away.

I don�t remember him having a devastating slider. To my memory, he was practically a two-pitch pitcher ---- fastball-curve. A change would come a half dozen times a game maybe (tops), just to show them he had one, a slider rarer than that. Maybe once or twice a game.

Did he even throw one at all?

[Elster88]

I don't think Doc had a slider at all.

[Guest Iubitul]

nope - I don't remember him having a slider either. He didn't need it when Lord Charles was working.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I can't believe I used to like Mike Lupica. What a self-serving, self-promoting article this is. And it got big back page play in today's Daily News:

]Pedro thows inside ... again MIKE LUPICA Sunday, April 9th, 2006 This was one month ago, another Saturday, and Pedro Martinez had suggested for the first time in Port St. Lucie that his sore big toe might prevent him from making an Opening Day start for the Mets. I got a call from the paper and Pedro's quotes were read to me and we decided to put him on the back page of the Sunday News, because he is big news now in New York, as big as a Yankee. This is the way the column began that night, a column that resulted in Pedro and I being the floorshow in the Mets clubhouse for a few minutes yesterday: "This is what you buy with Pedro Martinez. You buy the drama. You buy all the arm angles and all the spin, all the nights when he is the most exciting pitcher at Shea Stadium since the young Dwight Gooden, when he can make you feel as if you are watching the best pitching show in this world ... Pedro walked in (to New York) like he owned the place. He had the game, he had the style." The second paragraph ended this way: "He isn't going to get near 300 victories and he is still a Hall of Fame pitcher, because of the pitcher he was at this particular time in baseball. He is as much fun as any pitcher alive." This is how that column ended: "There has always been something fragile about him. He has always looked too small and too slender to pitch as big as he does. But he does. He is dramatic, on the field and off it. He was again yesterday. Big toe, big news." Somehow he took this as an insult. Or something. Somehow he thought that the use of the word "drama" was my way of saying I didn't think he was hurt. The column wasn't about that. Now it is sometime around noon in the Mets clubhouse and there are players and media people everywhere, rain falling outside. I have been talking for 20 minutes with Tom Glavine, about golf and the Final Four and his Opening Day start. Glavine, who still thinks he might get to pitch against the Marlins at this point, who has been told the rain may stop around 2 o'clock, walks off. Billy Wagner is in front of his locker listening to music, probably not the radio. I turn around and Pedro is there. Then he is right into it, full windup, saying that I had written something "personal" about him and that I don't know him well enough to do that, and how can I talk about "panorama" with him when I don't know what's inside his head or his heart? I realize now he's talking about the column from a month ago. "Drama," I say. "I used the word drama. I said you were always a great drama." That was being proved out now, of course, in the middle of the clubhouse, players watching from couches and from in front of their lockers, television sets still on. I told him I would be happy to take this conversation out into the hall, without the audience. But he was, at least at the start of it, clearly playing to the crowd. He is Pedro. He said he had read "between the lines" that I didn't think he was hurt when he talked about his sore toe on March 4 in Port St. Lucie, telling the writers, "As of now, I'm not a question (for Opening Day). As of now." "You're wrong," I said. "You don't have to believe that and you can walk away thinking I'm full of it, but you're wrong." Nobody in our business ever wants to be this kind of show in a team's clubhouse. It had happened once before with a Met, the young and hotheaded Darryl Strawberry at old Huggins-Stengel Field in St. Petersburg, before the Mets moved to Port St. Lucie, Strawberry telling me to stay out of his personal life. It turned out Strawberry was yelling that day about a column somebody had written about him in another paper. Another time, Eddie Lee Whitson called me out in the Yankee clubhouse. That time we did go out in the hall, even if I could see Don Mattingly's head poking out of the clubhouse door every few minutes, probably checking to see if I was still alive. Players have a right to get their say, even when it's loud, a right not to like what's written about them. But it sure is a lot easier for them to have the debate on their turf. Pedro wasn't going anywhere, he does what he wants, it's part of him being Pedro. Part of the drama. I don't know how long it went on, the two of us a few feet apart. He kept talking about the power of the press and this imagined attack on his integrity and I kept telling him the column wasn't about that, because it wasn't. The more it went on, the more professional it became, less like some silly ballpark version of "Crossfire." One more show without a second act. It started to wind down finally. We shook hands a couple of times. Still playing to the crowd, he said, "I apologize if I misunderstood." Maybe he just plans to take on everybody this year, the Yankees, the National League, everybody. For a few minutes yesterday it was a sportswriter. With him, even a small crowd will do.